


the storm calls us forth

by Ara (WalkUnseen)



Series: Ode to A Caged Bird [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Briefly Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, F/F, Other, Snippet from Ode, Won't make sense unless you've read it, Yasha & Mollymauk Tealeaf - Freeform, Yasha/Beauregard - Freeform, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-04-24 20:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19180666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WalkUnseen/pseuds/Ara
Summary: Ever since she awoke in his temple, she has always listened for the call of a storm.And after The Iron Shepherds, after everything that happened there, in Shady Creek Run, she no longer knows quite what storm to follow.But the rumble of thunder still sings in her ears anyways...





	the storm calls us forth

**Author's Note:**

> A small snippet into Yasha's mind during some of the events of [Ode To A Caged Bird](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15879561/chapters/37000464)
> 
> Goes from about ch. 8 up til ch. 25 of Ode.

It was quiet, those first few days. Or maybe it was louder than ever before. 

It was hard to tell, amongst the aftermath of it all. Freedom settled heavy on her shoulders, like the weight of irons she couldn't seem to shake from her head. 

And Molly was there. He was there and she wasn't sure what brought him back, miracle or no, with new scars carved into his chest and an old glimmer in his eyes. And she held him close that first night, listened to his heart beat under her ear. He was alive then, and he was alive the next morning, when they returned to town, then to the Nest, and she looked up to that window. A small portkey into a bedroom she remembers like a dream-- or a nightmare. As distant and rumbling as the Storm Lord's call in her ears. 

The place turned to ashes with the last of them killed, but she knew, even as they jostled away on a cart that used to hold her cage-- the very one she heard a choking cry and not the outraged shout of the one she was hoping to hear the most-- that some fires sow seeds. That someone would come to take the Iron Shepherds place in Shady Creek Run eventually. 

And they journeyed south. Passed through towns she remembered and places she held close, places she claimed flowers from and memories with. 

And Beau was there, a hand on her shoulder, a constant presence beside her, a voice on the wind lost amongst the tumultuous rumbles of everything else, but Yasha listened for her, even under the squalls. 

There was fear there, concerns she kept to herself, silent and watchful, content to let things fade into the same miasma of memory she knows well.

And Caleb, she watched him closely, watched him shiver and shake, jump and flinch, bare his teeth and raise his hackles; like a feral dog left to the Wastes too long. She wasn't sure how to help him. She wasn't even sure if she should.

Not when his name had left her lips in condemnation, not when she watched Lorenzo drag him from the cell, not when she knew where his fate ended, but didn't tell him. 

Guilt. It tasted as bitter as rotting blood on her tongue. As acrid as dark-honeyed eyes and twists of hair she wove into plaits herself and then abandoned. And she left her there to die. And she left Caleb to die as well. 

Two lives stained on her palms, and the low, fire-light dripped into blood within the grooves of her hands where she sat silently on watch.

And Molly and Beau told her it wasn't her fault. 

But how could she believe them? 

She breathed, looked up at he stars, and waited for clouds. 

Then the storm she hoped for finally came, and she felt it pull her away from them, so she answered.  

But she couldn't leave, and so she didn't.

And Molly came for her, and she could tell he was afraid-- that she had left, that he didn't recognize her, that he didn't know how to help them, that his friends all came back with new scars, and new weights on their shoulders. 

And she told Molly it was okay to hurt. 

She told him it was okay, that everything was going to be okay. She didn't say it as a promise, but as a hope-- and a lie. 

And Caleb asked her if she'd ever done something she couldn't take back and she thought of Zuala, she thought of  him; she thought of saying yes in a cell as she looked up at grinning gold and merciless eyes. 

And then they were in Zadash. 

And that hopeful little lie she had whispered to Molly in the thrall of a thunderstorm flickered and faltered, small as a candle flame cupped in her palms.

And Beau was still there, and where Molly teased her about it, about them, she wasn't sure. And Beau wasn't either. And it worked like that. Tentative and new, and with boundaries and walls built between them, broken with a hand on her cheek or their fingers entwined, but nothing more. 

She told Molly she was afraid. 

And maybe she was. 

She had never been afraid during. Not when rage coursed through her veins and fury churned under her sternum. But in the aftermath, like the wake of a storm-torn land, trees struck with ash and the ground pock-marked with the evidence of rain. She felt fear in the wake of it all. 

When she could still trace the faintest outlines of nail marks bitten into her hips, or the fading impression of teeth in her shoulder and in the last vestiges of bruises she wished would fade faster. In her hair, still growing in, trimmed and neatened now, but a constant reminder, a constant loss. 

And she stayed curled up in her room, because it was quieter there. 

Less eyes, less lies, less her nodding and saying it's okay, that she's okay, that they're all okay-- when she knows they're not. 

Not when Caleb starts fading right before their eyes and no one says anything. And they never talk, and she doesn't want to talk, and she can see it in their eyes that none of them want to talk either. 

And she yells at Beau, and she nearly breaks Molly's wrist, and she throws that memory further down, further away. Only yells when the sound of a storm smothers it, because her rage, her anger, it is only ever supposed to protect them, keep them safe. She was supposed to keep them safe. And she didn't. 

The day they find Caleb collapsed in the corner of the room, the blood, for the first time in so many years, turns her stomach so violently she loses her meal. 

And Beau hands her the cloth bag afterwards, the one they found clutched in his too thin fingers, says she knows what it is, that some people call it _Elysium_. And she knows Caleb was trying to outrun it, create a paradise in his own head. 

She doesn't blame him. 

Just helps hold him down when the others ask, presses wet cloths to his forehead, change his bandages, plays bedside nurse alongside the others as he sweats through it all. 

And Jester comes to her. In the night, when the others are asleep, and someone has to stay up to watch over a shivering Caleb.

Jester hands over her sketchbook, the one Yasha's seen her hold close since she met her. Let's her draw, let's her flip through the pages, let's Yasha see where it all changed. And Yasha doesn't say anything about the pictures of them all chained and fettered or the pictures of crossed out figures and half-torn pages-- even the puckered marks that look like tears. She just hands it back. 

And Caleb wakes up eventually, in the aftermath of a precipice they've all teetered on for far too long. 

She tells Beau everything about the Nest that night. And Beau tells her about the first girl she ever loved. And Yasha tells her about Zuala, and another barrier is torn down when she presses her forehead to Beau's and let's the dark hold their pasts for a moment.  

Jester becomes a recurring presence as well, as they travel further south, and into Trostenwald and beyond. Zuala's story shared with the tiefling as Yasha lets Jester thumb through her book of flowers. 

She tells Caleb about Zuala as well, and it's not any easier the third time, but her name doesn't taste quite so much like blood on her lips anymore. 

And he forgives her, in his own way. The violets he handed her settled next to the page with pressed silk flowers, and she shows Beau, shows Jester the small, fragrant bulbs. And it feels like she can breathe a bit easier again. 

So she breathes, and breathes, and waits for the next storm. 

The night Caleb tells them how he murdered his parents and she understands him more. Understands the disregard, the neglect, the way he curls his lip at the mention of himself, his reflection, at the glimpse of skin on his wrists. She knows what it's like to look at your reflection and wish it wasn't there sometimes too. 

And it's another night of shared books and memories when Jester asks her if she should get Caleb to draw too, that she thinks they're a bit similar, that it might help him. Yasha tells her it's a good idea. 

She watches from afar, wonders if she's made a mistake, encouraging the sometimes pushy tiefling, but Caleb seems content with it, productive, willing to play along. 

Later that night she hears Jester crying, goes to rise, and Caleb is already there, so she lets it be. Asks the tiefling about it later and Jester excitedly shows her the doodles the two of them made, and Yasha smiles. 

She breathes, and breathes, and looks up at the sky for any signs of clouds. 

Things turn sour again past the gates. 

Yasha wakes up to Beau snarling at Caduceus and the firbolg looks disturbed. And Caleb stalks off before any of them can catch him, Beau quickly following, and Yasha asks the firbolg what happened. 

He explains. 

And she tells him not everything is fated and meant to be, that sometimes bad things happen and even the gods can't decide them. 

Because she knows the Storm Lord would have never wanted that for her. 

It doesn't stop her from dreaming about being abandoned that night. Being left alone, chained up, stripped to nothing, and left to rot in a cell. Of hands coming to collect her. 

It doesn't stop her from thinking about those hands on her, it doesn't stop her from turning to Beau when she comes back, black eye and roughed-up knuckles added to the usual mix, and clinging to her. 

She doesn't let herself cry often. She remembers the way tears froze to her cheeks, mud clinging to her feet, trying to pull her down into the murk as she ran. And she cried during that first storm after the Nest too, when she yelled at the sky, asked the Storm Lord why he didn't answer that night, when she yelled out for him but no voice left her. She asked if she wasn't strong enough, and he sent a bolt shrieking into a tree as his only answer. 

She cries now too, curled up, face hidden away, Beau's arms wrapped around her, and she wishes there was rain and a storm to hide it all under. But that night she is the only storm, the skies clear for miles in every direction. 

The next day, she buys a dog. Not for herself, but for Jester, who looked so longingly at the puppy she couldn't let her leave empty-handed. And Jester turns to her, asks her to help name it, and Yasha's never named an animal before. Livestock, if any, and game were nameless, only meant to serve their purpose.

Yasha nearly suggests Leiptr, but Jester says Nugget, and the name sticks. The idea Jester shares with her sticks as well. She mentions writing, penning down a letter, and Yasha nods along, unsure what exactly it might entail, but intrigued all the same. She mentions extending an invitation to Caleb, and Yasha sees no harm in it. 

She doesn't expect the words to come so easily when Jester hands her the parchment and the pen. She writes to Zuala, she writes about her journey so far, about the flowers she's seen, the people, the places, about Mollymauk and Jester and Beauregard, about all of her friends. She writes about her worries, she writes about her fears, and she ends it with her hopes. 

She looks over at Caleb and knows he is writing a far different story, the man's spidery fingers having gone taut and tight around the quill. 

She would write that story as well, if she hadn't already written it. With a monster's severed hand tumbling from hers and ebony blood, thick and slick, like ink on her palms as she removed the collar from her neck in the aftermath. 

Caleb finishes last, claws at the dirt, starts to dig a pit, and Jester joins him. She follows as well, carving a hollow ditch in the earth alongside them, crude and marked with the indents of their fingers. They build a small fire in it and she drops her story in first, watches the paper curl into cinder petals and blossom into ash. 

She breathes, and breathes, and breathes, and the sky is clear for miles. 

No storm calls to her tonight. 

Jester tells her she's concerned when Caleb just sits there, but Yasha says it's fine. He's dealing with his own storm right now. He's nearly at the aftermath, and one day he'll pick through the debris, shore up for the next one, and wait for the whisper of the rain and the call of thunder once more. 

She watches Jester try and convince him, watches her fail, leaves with her and keeps an ear out for the edge of the camp as they return. Jester tells Nott Caleb is asking after her and the goblin scurries off. 

Nott will keep him safe if she is not quick enough again. 

Jester turns to her, the others far into sleep already.  

"Do you think he'll be okay?" 

"He can handle himself." She says. 

"I know… I just, sometimes… I worry about him-- them. All of them." 

"I know." 

Jester worries too much sometimes, but she won't tell her that, not when she can see the way Jester clings onto them with it all. 

"Why didn't you join us?" She asks instead of prying at it.

"What?" Jester asks before gesturing to where they came from. "Oh! You mean in the--" She mimes writing. "I wanted to give you two privacy, you know. Since you both went through similar… things." 

She hasn't forgotten the day in the cell, when the men tore at Jester's shirt, leered at her like dogs, or when Lorenzo threw her out to them-- spoke in threats that curdled her blood and made her teeth grind. 

"You did too." 

"But I didn't, Yasha. Nothing really happened to me. They just… they…" 

"They touched you and you didn't want them to." 

"Yeah but, they didn't really get anywhere--" Jester shakes her head. "It's not the same."

"If it hurt, it hurt."

"But they didn't-- it wasn't like with you--" Jester winces, recoiling. "I'm sorry, Yasha I shouldn't have--"

"Jester." She places a hand on the tiefling's shoulder, holding her steady. 

"Yes?" 

"It's okay..." 

The tiefling's lip trembles despite the empty euphemism. Nothing is ever really okay, not with these people, not with this group, but sometimes, it's just nice to hear someone tell you _'it'll be okay_ '. Even if you know it won't be-- even if it isn't yet. 

"Sometimes things stick with us. And then we have to live with those things. And..." She says, fingers tightening on Jester shoulder. "I suppose that… sometimes we wish those things weren't still there... but they are." 

The tiefling clings onto her forearm. "Does any of it ever go away?"  

"No..." She says, without an ounce of hesitation, like tearing the bandage off a wound. "It doesn't. I don't think so… But it gets easier… maybe..." She withdraws, Jester nearly reluctantly releasing her. "I'm still figuring it all out I think." 

"Yeah..." Jester swipes at her eyes, sniffling and forcing a grin like she's wont to do. "I think I am too." 

The distant rumble of thunder has her turning, looking off into the dark. The sky is blotted out in the north, the stars missing from their perches. 

"Is it a storm?" Jester asks. 

She breathes in, the tang of ozone familiar, the hair on her nape rising, and a presence, like a heavy hand on her shoulder, settles over her. 

"Yes." 

"Is it for you?" 

And she doesn't miss the note of fear in Jester's voice. 

"Yes…" 

"Will you leave again?" 

She looks down at her hands, curls her fingers around the Storm Lord's symbol, and looks back towards the distant flashes. The storm is for her, but it is not the storm that calls her forth.

"Not yet."


End file.
